1 . Directions: Read the following passage. Summarize in no more than 60 words the main idea of the passage and how it is illustrated. Use your own words as far as possible. 

It’s no laughing matter

Much research has been conducted about why humans laugh and what they laugh at—not only by psychologists, but also by philosophers, for the study of laughter crosses many disciplines. So, why do we laugh?

The general belief is that humans laugh as a social bonding mechanism. Studies have shown that humans are over 30 times more likely to laugh with others than alone. Even “laughing gas” works more effectively on a group of people than on a single person. We all know that laughter can be very infectious.

Some researchers believe that laughter in humans was born out of the relief our ancestors felt after danger had passed. If smiling in humans is considered an extension of the “fear” face in primates (灵长类动物), then laughter is a signal that the fear has gone. When we laugh, our “fight or flight” reaction to danger is temporarily switched off, further indicating that we now feel relaxed. So laughter is a way of discharging stress and anxiety.

Although laughter is universal, people don’t always laugh at the same things, and what people find funny often changes as they get older. Children find a lot to laugh about, as they are encountering so many things for the first time, which offers constant surprises. Teenagers often like jokes that adults find annoying, while adults often laugh at jokes about funny things in their own everyday lives. Furthermore, because a lot of our humor comes from a shared cultural background, countless jokes don’t cross language and cultural barriers, with the result that what’s funny in Australia may well not be in Austria.

Regardless of what different people find funny, people ought to laugh as much as they can. While we’re laughing, we increase the killer cells that destroy viruses. So, the next time someone tells you they nearly died laughing, tell them it’s far from the truth!

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2 . I was 12 years old when my life changed forever. It was just before the end of the school day, and my teacher told me that my mum had asked me to go home immediately. There was a police car in the driveway, and I heard the sound of my sister crying in the living room. My mum took me upstairs and told me that my dad had died. I remember crying like forever.

Then my uncle sat me down and told me what had happened. I remember thinking Dad must have been in an accident in his car — he had a sporty red one, and I thought he must have crashed. So it was shocking to learn he had been murdered — especially when I then discovered that he had been trying to help someone. Our cleaner had been going through a difficult break-up with her husband, and had her post delivered to our house so her partner couldn’t seize it. Dad had taken her mail round to her, but her partner saw him, stole a knife, went to the house and stabbed my dad through the heart, which killed him instantly.

It took me a very long time to be able to get to a place where I could remember the happy times with my dad. It’s as if your brain won’t let you remember, because it’s too painful. Even 30 years on, it can be a challenge. It’s like a coping surviving mechanism and I still work through it today — but that’s life living with sorrow.

During the past few years I’ve found that talking and writing has been a big help. It’s helped me acknowledge what happened, and has made me see these feelings are completely normal. Actually for many years, I used to question why I was still feeling this way, but you come to realize there is no set pattern to sorrow. It’s not a quick-fix process; it’s not even a fixable process. It’s something you have to live with, and you take comfort wherever you can find it.

For someone who has just gone through an unbearable loss, please take it easy on yourself. I’m not sure whether time is a healer, but it will show you how to live with these feelings you’re experiencing. And through your own unique journey, you’ll get to the point of understanding yourself that little bit better.

1. What can we learn about the death of the writer’s father?

A．He died a slow and painful death.

B．He was killed in a car crash.

C．He suffered from a heart attack.

D．He was cruelly murdered.

2. The writer initially managed the pain of losing his father by ________.

A．remembering every happy moment spent with his father

B．blocking memories related to his father

C．seeking a fixed pattern to overcome sorrow

D．going to the doctor for consultation

3. What will the writer probably say to the woman who lost her beloved husband 4 years ago?

A．With time passing by, you are sure to recover from the pain.

B．Talking and writing about loss is a quick-fix process for you.

C．Whatever feeling you have gone through is natural and normal.

D．If you are sill in a dark place, travelling may be a good idea.

4. The article is written to ________.

A．share a heartbreaking personal story

B．honor the memory of the writer’s father

C．highlight the need for personal safety

D．guide others how to face loss

3 . A big cause of concerns for Australian government is the increasing number of migrants who return to their countries of origin. Several surveys have been conducted recently into the reasons why people go home. One noted that “flies, dirt, and outside lavatories” were on the list of complaints from British immigrants, and added that many people also complained about “the crudity, bad manners, and unfriendliness of the Australians”.    1    

Most British migrants miss council housing the National Health scheme, and their relatives and former neighbor.    2    The men soon make new friends at work, but wives tend to find it much harder to get used to a different way of life. Many are housebound because of inadequate public transport in most outlying suburbs, and regular correspondence with their old friends at home only serves to increase their discontent. One housewife was quoted recently as saying: “I even find I miss the people I used to hate at home.”

Rent are high, and there are long waiting lists for Housing Commission homes. Sickness can be an expensive business and the climate can be unexpectedly rough. The gap between Australian and British wage packets is no longer big, and people are generally expected to work harder here than they do at home. Professional men over forty often have difficulty in finding a decent job.     3    

According to the journal Australian Manufacturer, the attitude of many employers and fellow workers is anything but friendly. “We Australians,” it stated in a recent issue, “are just too fond of painting the rosy picture of the big, warm-hearted Aussie    4    Go down “heart-break alley” among some of the migrants and find out just how expansive the Aussie is to his immigrants.”

A．Loneliness is a big factor, especially among housewives.

B．A slower rate of growth invariably produces discontent.

C．Another gave climate conditions and homesickness as the main reasons for leaving.

D．One drawback with immigrants to Australia is that integration tends to be more difficult.

E．Above all, perhaps, skilled immigrants often finds a considerable reluctance to accept their qualifications.

F．As a matter of fact, we are so busy boasting about ourselves that we have no time to be warm-hearted and considerate.

4 . Noah reached for his guitar, remembering his father as he did so, thinking how much he missed him. He strummed once, adjusted the tension on two strings, then strummed again. This time it sounded about right, and he began to play.

Soft music, quiet music. He hummed for a little while at first, then began to sing as night came down around him. He played and sang until the sun was gone and the sky black. It was a little after seven when he quit, and he settled back into his chair and began to rock. By habit, he looked upward and saw Orion and the Big Dipper, Gemini and the Pole Star, twinkling in the autumn sky. He started to run the numbers in his head, then stopped. He knew he’d spent almost his entire savings on the house and would have to find a job again soon, but he pushed the thought away and decided to enjoy the remaining months of restoration without worrying about it. Besides, thinking about money usually bored him. Early on, he’d learned to enjoy simple things, things that couldn’t be bought, and he had a hard time understanding people who felt otherwise. It was another trait he got from his father.

Clem, his hound dog, came up to him then and nuzzled his hand before lying down at his feet. “Hey, girl, how’re you doing?” he asked as he patted her head, and she whined softly, her soft round eyes peering upward. A car accident had taken her leg, but she still moved well enough and kept him company on quiet nights like these. He was thirty-one now, not too old, but old enough to be lonely. He hadn’t dated since he’d been back here, hadn’t met anyone who remotely interested him. It was his own fault, he knew. There was something that kept a distance between him and any woman who started to get close, something he wasn’t sure he could change even if he tried. And sometimes in the moments right before sleep came, he wondered if he was destined to be alone forever.

The evening passed, staying warm, nice. Noah listened to the crickets and the rustling leaves, thinking that the sound of nature was more real and aroused more emotion than things like cars and planes. Natural things gave back more than they took, and their sounds always brought him back to the way man was supposed to be. “It’ll keep you from going crazy,” his father had told him the day he’d shipped out. “It’s God’s music and it’ll take you home.” He finished his tea, went inside, found a book, then turned on the porch light on his way back out. After sitting down again, he looked at the book. It was old, the cover was torn, and the pages were stained with mud and water.

It was Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman, and he had carried it with him throughout the war. It had even taken a bullet for him once. He rubbed the cover, dusting it off just a little. Then he let the book open randomly and read the words in front of him: This is thy hour O Soul, thy free flight into the wordless. Away from books, away from art, the day erased, the lesson done. Thee fully forth emerging, silent, gazing, pondering the themes thou lovest best. Night, sleep, death and the stars. For some reason Whitman always reminded him of New Bern, and he was glad he’d come back. Though he’d been away from fourteen years, this was home and he knew a lot of people here, most of them from his youth. Like so many southern towns, the people who lived here never changed, they just grew a bit older.

1. The underlined sentence in paragraph two is the equivalent of “_________”.

A．he hated those who were unable to appreciate simple things in life

B．he didn’t see eye to eye with people who liked to save money

C．he had difficulty in figuring out how he got this trait from his father

D．he didn’t understand why people were so materialistic

2. Which of the following is NOT true according the passage?

A．Noah often played the guitar and observed the stars.

B．Clem the dog showed great affection for her master.

C．Noah was destined to be alone since no woman seemed interested in him.

D．Noah planned to restore his house before landing himself a job.

3. Which of the following statements would Noah’s father most agree with?

A．Patients suffering from mental disorder can be cured by nature.

B．The closer you are to nature, the closer you are to your true self.

C．Where there is God’s music, there is home.

D．A good book is a man’s best company.

4. Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman _________.

A．had been a treasure but was now too damaged to read

B．recorded the lives of New Bern’s people who never changed over the years

C．was beyond Noah’s understanding so he randomly picked up some words to read

D．stirred a feeling of nostalgia in Noah

5 . 听下面一段独白，回答以下小题。1.

A．To treat eating disorder during high school.

B．To increase confidence in herself.

C．To achieve external perfection.

D．To try to lose some weight.

2.

A．She felt pleased to find a good husband.

B．She was upset about her unsatisfactory image.

C．She was anxious to read about the story of ancient Italians.

D．She was stressed about the tight wedding schedule.

3.

A．Getting well along with friends.

B．Improving self-image through various ways.

C．Being devoted to meaningful activities.

D．Relying on people around her.

6 . Directions: Write an English composition in 120-150 words according to the instructions given below in Chinese.

假设你是明启中学高三学生李明，最近在一本英语杂志上读到一篇关于“happiness”的文章，其中列举了几位名人对这一话题的看法（如右所示）。你对此话题很感兴趣，给该杂志“读者来信”专栏写一封邮件，内容须包括： 1)       哪一位名人的看法最令你有同感； 2)       2)你的理由。

Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence. — Aristotle Happiness is like a butterfly; the more you chase it, the more it will escape you. But if you turn your attention to other things, it will come and sit softly on your shoulder. — Henry David Thoreau The secret of happiness is not in seeking more, but in learning to enjoy less. — Socrates

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7 . Directions: Complete the following passage by using the words in the box. Each word can only be used once. Note that there is one word more than you need.

A. stillness       B. refuge   C. thundering   D. withered   E. oppressive F. unattended G. gripped       H. creaked   I. approaching J. somewhere   K. hastily

On the morning of the first of September, Scarlett awoke with suffocating sense of dread upon her, a dread she had taken to her pillow the night before. She thought, dulled with sleep: ‘What was it that I was worrying about when I went to bed last night? Oh, yes the fighting. There was a battle,     1    ,yesterday! Oh, who won?’ She sat up    2    , rubbing her eyes, and her worried heart took up yesterday’s load again.

The air was    3     even in the early morning hour, hot with the scorching promise of a noon of glaring blue sky and pitiless bronze sun. The road outside lay silent. No wagons    4     by. No troops raised the red dust with their tramping feet, no pleasant sounds of breakfasts being prepared, for all the near neighbors except Mrs. Meade and Mrs. Merriwether had sought    5    in Macon. And she could hear nothing from their houses either. Farther down the street the business section was quiet and many of the stores and offices were locked and boarded up, while their occupants were somewhere about the countryside with rifles in their hands.

The     6    that greeted her seemed even more sinister this morning than on any of the mornings of the queer quiet week preceding it. She rose quickly, without her usual preliminary burrows and stretches, and went to the window, hoping to see some neighbor’s face, some heartening sight. But the road was empty. She noted how the leaves on the trees were still dark green but dry and heavily coated with red dust, and how     7    and sad the untended flowers in the front yard looked.

As she stood, looking out of the window, there came to her ears a far-off sound, faint and sullen as the first distant thunder of a(n)    8    storm.

‘Rain,’ she thought in the first moment, and her country-bred mind added, ‘We certainly need it.’ But, in a split instant: ‘Rain? No! Not rain! Cannon!’

Her heart racing she leaned from the window, her ear cocked to the far-off roaring, trying to discover from which direction it came. But the dim     9    was so distant that, for a moment, she could not tell. ‘Make it from Marietta,’ she prayed. ‘Or Decatur. But not from the south! Not from the south!’ She    10    the windowstill tighter and strained her ears and the far-away booming seemed louder. And it was coming from the south.

8 . Directions: Fill in each blank with a proper word chosen from the box. Each word can only be used once. Note that there is one word more than you need.

A. content B. demands   C. guard     D. depressed   E. prioritized   F. fits G. failure   H. meant   I. competed     J. mere     K. independent

Happiness, as the Brazilian poet Vinicius de Moracs put it, is “like a feather flying in the air. It flies light, but not for very long.”

Humans are not designed to be happy or even     1    . Instead, we are designed primarily to survive and reproduce, like every other creature in the natural world. A state of contentment is discouraged by nature because it would lower your     2     against possible threats to your survival.

Evolution has     3     the development of a big frontal lobe(脑叶)in our brain (which gives us excellent executive and analytical abilities) over a natural ability to be happy. Different geographical locations and circuits in the brain are each associated with certain neurological(神经系统的)and intellectual functions, but happiness, being a(n)     4     idea with no neurological basis, cannot be found in the brain tissue.

In fact, experts in this field argue that nature’s     5     to eliminate depression in the evolutionary process is due precisely to the fact that depression as an adaption plays a useful role in times of difficulty, by helping the     6     individual get away from risky and hopeless situations in which he or she cannot win.

Our emotions are mixed and at times contradictory, like everything else in our lives. Research has shown that positive and negative emotions can coexist in the brain relatively     7     of each other. This models show that the right hemisphere processes negative emotions preferentially, whereas positive emotions are dealt with by the left-sided brain.

It’s worth remembering, then, that we are not designed to be consistently happy. Instead, we are designed to survive and reproduce. These are difficult tasks, so we are     8     to struggle, seek safety, fight off threats and avoid pain. The model of competing emotions offered by coexisting pleasure and pain     9     our reality much better than the unachievable bliss(极乐)that the happiness industry is trying to sell us. In fact, pretending that any degree of pain is abnormal will only develop feelings of inadequacy and frustration.

So, if you are unhappy at times, this is not a shortcoming that     10     urgent repair. Far from it. This fluctuation(波动)is, in fact, what makes you human.

9 . Directions: Read the passage carefully. Then write an English summary within 60 words in your own words according to the passage given below.

Say Thanks

If writing thank-you letters is a task you readily dismiss, you aren’t alone. However, saying thanks could be the best gift you can give, to yourself and others.

The benefits of gratitude have long been championed in philosophical thinking. In recent years, the science has been catching up: it shows that people who feel most grateful generally get a psychological boost (促进) as a result. They also have greater life satisfaction, fewer visits to the doctor and better sleep. This has led to gratitude being a part of our culture, inspiring an explosion of gratitude journals, in which you record things you are thankful for. It has also led to renewed interest in the neuroscience and psychology of gratitude.

However, the benefits of actually expressing this gratitude have received less attention. Now evidence is piling up that shows turning our inner gratitude into action can make our lives even better.

For instance, a simple thank you can build relationships, even with strangers. Take people who have received a note of thanks for something they have done from a peer they don’t know. They are more likely to share their contact details with that person in an attempt to continue the relationship than people who receive a note that doesn’t contain thanks. A simple thank you seems to signal interpersonal warmth.

But the benefits go further than just strengthening social relationships, they can have an impact on health, too. A study of more than 200 nurses working in two Italian hospitals found that gratitude expressed by patients could protect nurses from burnout. That was especially so in the emergency room, where personal interactions with patients are typically shorter and less rewarding. This positive feedback from patients reduced feelings of exhaustion among nurses, says Mara Martini at the University of Turin, who carried out the work.

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10 . Directions: Read the following passage. Summarize the main idea and the main point(s) of the passage in no more than 60 words. Use your own words as far as possible.

Working Out Worries by Writing

After his father was driven to the hospital for emergent treatment, 43-year-old Yanatha Desouvre began to panic. So, he did one thing that he knew would calm himself: He wrote. Over the next few weeks, Desouvre filled several notebooks, writing about his worry as well as his happy memories with his dad. “Writing allowed me to face my fear and process my pain,” he says. Psychologists refer to that kind of writing as “expressive writing”. People do it by recording their deepest thoughts and feelings. However, different from writing in a journal, expressive writing is to reflect honestly and thoughtfully on a particular frustration or challenge.

A well-known psychology professor says that hundreds of studies have looked at the potential benefits of expressive writing and found it can help reduce pain and improve mood, sleep and memory. It may even help reduce symptoms of various illnesses, and prevent colds and flu.

Expressive writing takes effect because translating a painful experience into language allows people to make meaning out of it, some experts say. The process forces them to organize their thoughts and offers a sense of control, thus completing the pursuit of value from such an experience. Another research suggested that during expressive writing, the act of labeling a feeling can lessen the activity relating to nerves in the threat area of the brain. With these nerves relaxed, people can lower the symptoms of their diseases, enhance their appreciation for life, and increase the acceptance of various experiences in their lives.

What can’t be ignored is that it shouldn’t be used as a replacement for other medical treatments. And people coping with a severe depression may not find it useful to do on their own, without therapy. Yet, it can be a powerful coping tool for many, in large part because it helps battle against their reluctance to face negative emotions.

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